


all along there was some invisible string

by Howlingatthestars



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Feels, Drabbles, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, short and silly thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26050771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingatthestars/pseuds/Howlingatthestars
Summary: In a world where Soulmarks exist, the Jedi suffer more than most.
Relationships: Asajj Ventress/Quinlan Vos, Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano, CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura, Cliegg Lars/Shmi Skywalker, Dooku/Jocasta Nu, Kit Fisto/Aayla Secura, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Satine Kryze, Qui-Gon Jinn/Tahl (Star Wars)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 204





	all along there was some invisible string

It was said that in the beginning of the universe, when the first beings came to life, they did not know how to choose potential mates, that they could not figure out who was the right one. A deity, it is said, though whether it was a God or a Goddess, (or whether their intent was good or malicious) has been lost to time, decided to give the first inhabitants of the universe marks. These marks were special. If you found the person who matched yours, it meant that you were supposed to be with that person for the rest of your lives.

And so the story of how Soulmarks came into being is told, from generation to generation, each more hopeless than the last.

\---------------------------------

According to the Jedi Order of the Republic, Soulmarks were relevant only if they were found. If a Jedi successfully came across their match, the couple had a choice to make; as to whether they would leave the Jedi and be together, as their duty to their match would be stronger than it was to the Order, or to ignore their marks and remain Jedi.

This was not the way of the old Jedi Order, who revered Soulmarks with great care and ceremony, but not many Jedi dared question the modern Jedi Order, lest they be cast out.

\---------------------------------

There were many rumours in the Jedi Temple. Regardless of the rules surrounding Soulmarks, many younglings and initiates and even padawans were quick to speculate on what marks their masters had and those who they thought had matching marks.

Everyone loves a forbidden love story, after all.

_Master Yoda does not have a Soulmark, because he is devoted to the Force_ , is the most common gossip, and it is the least correct. Master Yoda had been born with a golden Soulmark in the shape of a circle. He had never revealed it to anyone, because he had decided the Jedi Order would be the love of his life. Duty came first.

_Master Windu’s Soulmark has gone grey not because his soulmate died, but because he carved it out of his own arm to show his strong allegiance to the Order_ , is the next most common rumour, and is only half right. Mace Windu had been blessed with a red mark on his forearm, a phoenix in flight, and it had been the envy of many of his fellow padawans when he had been young, due to its beauty. Mace had found its match the day it turned grey. He never stopped thinking about it.

_Master Kenobi and Master Skywalker’s Soulmarks match_ , is the last one, and the only one which is absolutely correct.

\---------------------------------

Anakin Skywalker loved his Soulmark. How could he not? It was one of the few things he had which actually _belonged_ to him. It was a silver mark, in the shape of a Krayt dragon. It was glorious. His mother agreed wholeheartedly, and told him tales of people across the vast galaxy finding one another and revealing their matching marks. Anakin wished with every fibre of his being that it would happen to him, too. Of course, unbeknown to him, the Force heard his pleas and granted his wish, although he would not realise it for many years to come.

Shmi Skywalker had a mark, once. It was carved off by slavers when they caught her and forced her into the horrible life of a slave woman on Tatooine. She always looked at her scarred wrist with sadness and a fierce yearning whenever she caught it peeking out of her sleeve. She never thought to find its match, let alone find them on Tatooine itself, in a man called Cliegg Lars. The Force had agreed that Shmi deserved happiness before her untimely end. Her fate would always remain the same in every universe.

\---------------------------------

Qui-Gon Jinn’s match had been known to him since he was a boy. Her name was Tahl, and Qui-Gon thought she was the most beautiful, perfect being to walk the galaxy. Of course, both of them were separated as soon as possible, to dissuade any notion of attachment between the two until they were old enough to have a clear discussion about whether they wanted to leave the Order together or not.

It didn’t work, though.

Both met up several times over the years, engaging in a clandestine affair, yet as much as each loved the other, neither were willing to make the ultimate commitment and leave the Order. Until one day, Tahl told Qui-Gon that the next time she saw him, they would seriously discuss their future together.

Qui-Gon’s mark, a pretty white cloud, was grey soon enough.

\---------------------------------

Aayla Secura and Kit Fisto did not share marks, regardless of what everyone assumed. They were two beings who utterly rejected the idea that someone out there was already predestined for them and so they had a dalliance with each other to prove it.

Aayla met her clone commander, Bly, at the onset of the clone war, and was startled to see her very own yellow sun splashed across his neck.

Aayla and Kit never did get back together, after that.

\---------------------------------

Quinlan Vos was a big supporter of the Jedi Order being more lenient towards those who found their Soulmates. He had yet to find his, yet to come across the match of his green grass on his left foot, but when he did, he decided that he would leave the Order for them. He was already a maverick, and practically hanging off the short edge of a rope with the council anyway.

Asajj Ventress wanted to be Dooku’s apprentice more than anything, so her green grass Soulmark was all but forgotten under her shoes most of the time. It comes back to her full force when facing off against Kenobi and Quinlan Vos on some dirtball planet on the outer rim, where Vos had taken off his shoes to fight on the sand better, or so he claimed.

Every time she saw him after that, she made sure he always got away.

\---------------------------------

Yan Dooku was not a pleasant man, even as a Jedi. He was pompous and self-serving, as well as highly arrogant.

It was a surprise to everyone except Yan’s master that he made a quick friend in Jocasta Nu. Jocasta Nu’s Soulmark matched his down to the last detail, a pink diamond on both their shoulders.

She wanted to leave, but he wanted glory.

\---------------------------------

Ahsoka Tano’s mark is unremarkable, in her opinion. A blue moon, settled low on her collarbone. Ahsoka barely thinks of it, the rush of war and of being a new padawan, and of having so much to do it was impossible to even rest, never mind worry about wanting to find her match.

She came in one night from another nameless battle, another war waged and won, to find Skyguy and Master Obi-Wan in beds beside one another in the healing room on their ship. That wasn’t odd. What was odd was that Anakin’s right arm was hanging off the bed, intertwined with Obi-Wan’s left, which had fallen off of his own bed. Ahsoka had blinked, then left. It was their own business, after all.

She did begin to allow her mind to wander sometimes.

\---------------------------------

Bariss Offee was covered up most of the time, as her culture demanded, and so knew that if she identified her Soulmate, she would have to be brave enough to inform them that she was the one they were looking for.

Seeing Ahsoka’s blue moon—her blue moon—proudly on display makes her pause, a thousand possibilities rushing through her mind like waves crashing on the shore.

She decides to leave it alone. They are at war.

\---------------------------------

Obi-Wan Kenobi is born with an ugly animal on his right thigh. Bruck Chun tells everyone so, anyway, and the other younglings giggle, even as Obi-Wan flushes in rage and embarrassment. He doesn’t think the animal is ugly.

He searches for it for a while, but as it turns out there are thousands of large species on each planet which means his hope of finding his own particular animal without revealing his intention to one of the masters was slim to none, unless he devoted himself to working in the archives with Master Nu.

Regardless, his soulmate had not been Satine (who had a graceful violet dove perched daintily on her stomach), and so he decided he probably didn’t want to know them anyway.

He always was brilliant at lying to himself.

\---------------------------------

Darth Sidious was also Sheev Palpatine.

Neither had a mark.

\---------------------------------

Darth Maul had a mark, once. People will say that his visceral, unrelenting anger towards Obi-Wan Kenobi was due to the loss of his legs, and that may have been a part of it, but the real loss was the Soulmark, a blackbird, flying free on his ankle.

He never did find a match.

\---------------------------------

Anakin Skywalker meets Padme Amidala as a boy, and promptly decides she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and that must make her his soulmate.

He excitedly talks to his mother about her, even although they had already just met, and Shmi smiles, hoping once again to whatever Gods exist that even if she could not find true happiness, that her son find it instead.

Anakin keeps his desire for Padme to be his soulmate a secret throughout all his years as a padawan, and when he meets her again, nineteen and endlessly awkward, he flirts with her almost hopelessly. She gazes at him sometimes, a searching look in her deep brown eyes, and it is clear she is holding herself back from asking the question which everyone either longs or dreads to hear.

She never asks.

\---------------------------------

Anakin decides he hates Obi-Wan three days after Geonosis, after slowly getting used to his new prosthetic arm. The arm is not why he hates him, though.

On Geonosis, Padme’s white shirt had been ripped to reveal her midriff, and the delicate violet dove carved into it. Obi-Wan had blinked in surprise and had nearly gotten himself shot before putting it out of his mind until later.

Later came a few hours after the arena, when he quietly informed Padme that he knew her mark’s match if she so wished to know. Padme assumed he would say Anakin. She isn’t sure how guilty she should feel about the relief which coursed through her veins when he said Satine instead.

She had been trying to prepare herself for a secret marriage, after all.

\---------------------------------

Satine and Padme’s wedding occurs two years later, in the middle of the war. Funnily enough, both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were invited, and both had similar relationships with each of the brides.

Anakin still felt a rush of indignation at his former master on the day, which unbeknown to him had been carefully stoked by Darth Sidious, but he releases some of it when he sees the incandescent happiness shining from both brides as they sway through their first dance as a married couple, and it is completely gone when he sees that both had opted for wedding dresses which fashionably showed their matching birds.

He wishes that someone would be proud enough to show off his Krayt dragon one day.

\---------------------------------

Master Luminara Unduli was no stranger to the Jedi’s stance on Soulmarks. After all, she had been severely reprimanded for her behaviour after finding her own.

A young man on some nameless planet during some nameless dispute, she had found and lost him within an hour. Her master found her three hours later, sobbing and cradling him to her chest, her fetching dark green circle turned grey and pale.

Master Unduli is known from then on to caution against any and all strong attachments.

\---------------------------------

Jango Fett’s mark matched his first wife, a woman nobody knew.

He kept her close to his heart.

She had always wished for a son named Boba.

\---------------------------------

Bail Organa and his wife, Breha, do not have matching marks, despite what people think.

When people see them together, they wonder who else could possibly match the other when they were a practically perfect couple.

Bail and Breha met and bonded when their soulmates both died in a horrible accident on Alderaan.

\---------------------------------

Anakin carries Obi-Wan to the medbay quickly, sensing the pain his former master is going through by a quick check of their never severed bond.

Whilst there, Kix tears off the leg of the trousers Obi-Wan wears, for better access to his wounds.

Anakin’s gaze meets the silver Krayt dragon, and his life is never the same again.

\---------------------------------

The end of the war, they both agree, is when they will leave to be with one another.

Both of them had been secretly romantic at heart, and so despite popular belief they were not particularly sad over leaving the Order they had dedicated their lives to.

After all, they are SkywalkerandKenobi, they are The Team, and there is no difficulty they have ever faced which they have not managed to overcome together.

\---------------------------------

In the end, despite all of his machinations and plots, Darth Sidious cannot defeat both of them, especially when they fight so in sync.

Anakin, for all that he had told many a secret to the Sith Lord, had kept Obi-Wan being his soulmate closest to his heart. Darth Sidious had assumed it was a rumour.

His last sight is of the two of them standing over his dying body, holding one another close. Love always triumphs over hate.

\---------------------------------

Order 66 was still carried out by the clones, and so there are very few Jedi left to mourn their fallen brothers and sisters after the dreadful order has been cancelled by the new Chancellor Padme Amidala.

Nevertheless, the losses did bring the rest of the Jedi together, and united them once more.

They all leave the Coruscant temple behind, deciding that it is too full of ghosts to continue there. They are very lucky, because there is a long undiscovered Sith ruin directly beneath their feet.

\---------------------------------

They build a new life on a new planet, and it is finally agreed unanimously that Soulmarks are the will of the Force, and that they would no longer interfere with destiny.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at 4AM, please forgive any errors you find. Hope you enjoyed reading this! Please let me know what you thought of it.


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